I Want To Stay Green
by GreyEyesGlaringAtShonda
Summary: The scientific part of her brain told her that this was impossible, but that analogy worked well, her mind was in a cloud and it Hurt. Shaking and standing and squeezing her eyes shut as tight as they could go didn't work. Her heart felt empty, but how


**I Want To Stay Green**

by greyeyedgirl

Summary: The scientific part of her brain told her that this was impossible, but that analogy worked well, her mind was in a cloud and it Hurt. Shaking and standing and squeezing her eyes shut as tight as they could go didn't work. Her heart felt empty, but how could empty feel so heavy? How could empty feel so _full?_

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When Cristina Yang looked down at the image of her boyfriend laying bleeding after being shot down, a million thoughts and fears raced throuhg her mind.

Somewhere, deep down inside her, there was a bright mist swirling around her head, encompassing her in a luminescent fog that seemed to push down on her from all directions. The scientific part of her brain told her that this was impossible, but that analogy worked well, her mind was in a cloud and it Hurt. Shaking and standing and squeezing her eyes shut as tight as they could go didn't work. Her heart felt empty, but how could empty feel so heavy? How could empty feel so _full?_

Full of gray. Full of fog. Full of the inability to think, to react, to build up the walls she needed to distance herself, because pretending it didn't affect her hurt so, so much less than succumbing to the pain.

This was precisely why she hadn't wanted to get involved with anyone. Bonds with people, with anything, caused pain, horrible feelings to not just you but the ones you loved. No one could be trusted. Nothing is forever.

She stood inside Derek Shepherd's operating room, and she could not function. She could not perform a surgery, not on anyone, not on the man she loved more than anybody else. She could not perform anything. She could not think, or breathe, or move, much less perform surgery, much less comfort him when she didn't know what to say or what to do to take away his pain.

She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to squeeze his hand and then his arm and then his whole body to her, and cry and tell him what an idiot she was. She did not deserve this man. He was not as ass, he was the love of her life.

She wanted to, but these things were among the millions of thoughts and phrases she'd never be able to say, things she'd never be able to tell him, things she pushed to the back of her mind when they tried to keep her awake at night.

Watching him convulse, and not be able to take away his pain. Watching him lay in a pit of depression...somehow that was even worse.

She tried to remember when she had first decided that _people_, ones she liked and ones she didn't, were messy, and she didn't like _other_ people's messes. They were sick. They all tried to be sincere enough when you first became close to them, or as close as Cristina Yang ever got to another human being, but when you needed them, they were not there, and even more importantly---

Humans were selfish, they made mistakes. Even if they didn't mean to hurt you, they _did,_ it was inevitable. That was why you couldn't rely on them. Cristina Yang didn't make mistakes. She knew everything, she knew what she was doing, and nothing ever surprised her.

She thought maybe she could remember when she first decided it. She had been 11 years old, just out of sixth grade, and she had went to visit her father for the first time in eight years. He lived in Chicago, so she was against the visit from the start-she was not exactly a Mid-Western type of girl. At least it was city where he lived, though. She would not have to go hiking around some farm until she got eaten by a bear...

After a particularly nasty interaction with her father and his new fiance, that she had not been aware about, she had ran from his apartment, racing down the noisy streets until she had come to the little park where she had been forced to baby-sit her father's fiance _Kimberly's_ horrid children. She had climbed quickly onto a rock that overlooked the path, ignoring the teens dressed all in leather by the pavilion nearby. She had looked out into the unfamiliar land, taking in the tress outlining one side of the playground area, and thought about her room back home, the Periodic Table of Elements poster hanging on her wall, the working model of the cardiovascular system she had built for the fifth grade science fair sitting by her windowsill. Why had she had to come? Why couldn't have everything have just stayed the same?

She looked out at the trees, where the leaves were already beginning to change colors. It was pretty now, she mused, but what about what was going to come next? Fall would trip over them, the leaves would turn brown, dying before spreading out to pollute over the cities and strees. What would be left? The bare wood would still stand, but empty of the warm coverings that had always blown gently in the wind. How could something like that happen? How could every single leaf leave, so what had once been a magnificent piece of nature would be reduced to a skinny brown pole, to later be frosted over in a pit of white and snow?

Cristina figured the leaves were on her side. They didn't like change either. _They_ didn't want to die!

Why couldn't they just stay freakin' green?

Cristina didn't really like the color green, but she pushed that thought out of her mind.


End file.
